


A Woman Sculpted: Etiquette for the Shaping of Girls into Young Ladies

by FullmetalArchivist (1stTimeCaller)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: But in that way that kids that like eachother also hate each other, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Lil' Riza hated lil' Roy, Pre-Canon, Scrappy Riza, Smug Roy, Y'Know?, Young Royai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 04:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15941654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1stTimeCaller/pseuds/FullmetalArchivist
Summary: He sat up, the book falling from his face to wedge between the couch cushions. He leaned forward, lips slowly stretching into a smile. She knew that smile. She didn’t like that smile. It was the smile he wore when he had an idea, usually a very devious and stupid idea.“Then let’s make it interesting.”





	A Woman Sculpted: Etiquette for the Shaping of Girls into Young Ladies

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun to write. As I was working on my multi-chap, I kept having ideas of interactions between young Roy and young Riza, but some of them didn't fit the tone of the fic, and so this was born. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Riza is thirteen in this, Roy is fourteen (and a half. The half is very important to him).

 

> _"It is impolite for a lady to detain a gentleman in conversation while they smoke, as it would force them to put out a good cigar."_

Riza stretched her legs out across the couch even though the last chapter told her she shouldn’t do that. The old book was an outdated slog, with too many vowels in places they didn’t belong, and too-long sentences and a hundred rules for how to use the toilet. And she didn’t know any men who smoked cigars anyway. Roy once managed to charm Mrs. Lyons into selling him a pouch of tobacco and papers, but he didn't know how to roll his own, so the pouch sat unused on his nightstand until eventually Riza threw it out.

The door creaked open, and Riza didn’t need to look up to know who was poking their head in. _Speak of the devil_. And Roy Mustang was as close to a devil as she ever saw.

“Riiii,” he stretched the syllable. Roy had a nasty habit of calling her anything but her name, usually to try get her attention. He had a special nickname for when he wanted to get a rise out of her.

As if reading her mind, he took another long step toward her. “ _RiRi…”_ She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of old paper. Sometimes, if she ignored him long enough he’d go and find something else to do instead of bother her.

This wasn’t one of those times.

“Hey!” she scolded as his head rose up right in front of her face. She had to drop the book so her arms weren’t encircling his neck. “I’m tryna study, take a hint.”

He looked at her with droopy eyelids and a silly grin, before his whole face snapped to attention. His eyebrows scrunched and his nostrils flared as he inhaled a few shallow breaths, sniffing the air between them like a curious dog.

She realized what he was smelling and tried to scramble backwards, away from him, but he was too quick. His entire body slid against her across the couch, pinning her hands between their stomachs as he dropped his head. She tried to shrug her shoulder to her ear, but his face burrowed through. He pressed his nose to her neck and took a long sniff.

“You’re wearing perfume!” he accused when he lifted his head.

She felt a hot blush creep up the back of her neck. “It’s just rose water.” When his head dropped to sniff her again, she tried to headbutt him with her temple. “There’s a bottle of it in the kitchen, go sniff that if you like it so much!”

He rose to face her again, but pressed harder against her to stifle her struggling legs. “Just who’re you tryna impress with perfume anyway?”

“I _just said_ , it’s not perfume. We had to do it in school.” Sollicitus’ School for Girls boasted an excellent educational program, but Riza figured that learning where to put smells didn’t count, really.

She felt the sting of pins-and-needles as she tried to dislodge her arms, and managed to lift an elbow enough to poke into his ribs uncomfortably. He shifted off her, picking the book off the floor before sitting upright on top of her legs and examining the blue cover.

“ _A Woman Sculpted: Etiquette for the Shaping of Girls into Young Ladies_. HA!”

Riza pulled her legs from under him, adding a swift kick to his hip for good measure. He doubled over but didn’t scold her, flicking through some pages of the book giddily.

“Don’t you have homework of your own to be doing?” Riza huffed.

“Shush. Set up for checkers.” He waved absently toward the cupboard in the corner of the room.

Riza sighed and stood up to retrieve the checkers board. One quick game and then maybe he’d be entertained enough to go away. She cleared the coffee table and took out the pieces, separating them by color.

“Red or white?”

“Red. Hey, there’s a whole chapter here on debutante etiquette. That’s crazy, you don’t debut for another… Five years?”

“Four. You know, they used to have regular graduation days before Ms. Florence came along.” She continued setting up as Roy tilted his head, looking her over.

“I suppose they’ll need a head-start for you anyway. You’re gonna have to grow out your hair.”

Riza touched her fingers to the short hairs just above the nape of her neck. Her teacher told her that too. According to the book, short hair on young girls was an example of ‘ill-breeding’. Where they got that notion from, she didn’t know. Your breeding was the same with short hair or not.

Roy continued to flip through the book. “This town has the right idea. Back home, all the rich ladies debut on their eighteenth birthday. _Separately_. Big parties in their family mansions.” He scrunched his face at the thought. “Get ‘em all done in one batch, that’s what I say.”

Riza placed the red counters one-by-one in the center of their squares. “What’s the point in debuting anyway? If you have to show off that you’re old enough, you probably shouldn’t be getting married in the first place.”

“What’s a coquette? Sounds rude.”

“And anyway, I won’t even be of age by the time I finish school! Maybe I can use that as an excuse.”

“Says here you’re not supposed to talk to your servants. That’ll be easy at least.”

She sighed and rested her chin on her hand. “What do you suppose it’s like to be married?”

Roy lifted his head at that. “For you?” He paused for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. “I suppose it’ll be a lot like it is now.”

Riza frowned at the thought as she stood up and approached the couch again.

Roy brought his attention back to the book. “Go round.”

“I was sitting there first!”

“And then you got up. Go round.”

Riza clenched her fists and huffed an angry breath. She stomped around to the other side of the coffee table, kneeling down and twisting the board so the white counters were closest to her, and executed the opening move.

Roy took his turn, playing the game as an afterthought, as he got more and more engrossed by the book. Riza moved her piece right after him. It was one of those nights where she really didn’t care about the outcome of the game.

Roy didn’t even look up when taking his turn. “Hey, listen to this: ‘ _No young lady is to find herself in a situation wherein she is alone with a gentleman who is neither immediate family nor husband, lest she be subject to a scandal.’_ That’s crazy! They can’t go around teaching all the girls not to be alone with boys!”

“Why’re you making me play if you’re not even paying attention?”

Roy skipped forwards a couple pages. “Because you won’t play me at chess.”

“Why do you care? You’re awful at chess.”

“Only because you won’t play me. Hey, did you know that it’s impolite for girls to whistle?”

Riza decided she'd reached her limit of dealing with him for the day. It was bad enough that she had to read the stupid thing, without him reading it to her and teasing her about it. She extended her hand across the checkers board expectantly. “Give it back and go do something else.”

“You’re always nagging me to study!”

“Study your own stuff.” Roy had an exam on Sunday evening, and though he always seemed to come out of a test on top, it wouldn’t hurt him to actually try for once.

Roy groaned dramatically, tilting his head back and resting the open book over his eyes. “I _can’t_ , my brain is fried. And I don’t believe for a second that you’d rather be reading _this_ than playing chess.”

“I can’t think of anything more boring than playing chess with you.”

He sat up, the book falling from his face to wedge between the couch cushions. He leaned forward, lips slowly stretching into a smile. She knew that smile. She didn’t like that smile. It was the smile he wore when he had an idea, usually a very devious and stupid idea.

“Then let’s make it interesting.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fat chance.”

“You’re gonna like this,” he singsonged.

“Fat chance.”

“Parrot. Hear me out.” He brushed the counters off the board, red and black counters sliding over each other and clicking against the wooden table. Riza raised an eyebrow, about to remind him that his forfeit was technically her win, but he carried on. “If you win, I’ll do the chores for ‘til Monday. The cooking, the cleaning, the errands, everything.”

That caught her attention.

Riza had a very full daily schedule, and shirking her duties wouldn’t result in others picking up the slack. It would mean skipped meals and messy rooms and even more chores when she returned to her responsibilities. The idea of a couple days off—and a _weekend_ at that—was a freedom she hadn’t tasted since her father first began his research on flame alchemy. And she’d probably spend that freedom simply reading or sleeping past noon, but that would be enough. Maybe she’d get another invitation to spend time with Thomas Banks and his friends outside of school. Golly, maybe she would _accept_ it!

But Roy was still smiling that smile that spelled bad news in block letters, so instead of showing her excitement, she crossed her arms. “And if you win?”

Riza could hear the squishy sound of dry lips stretching across wet gums. His teeth glinted to match his eyes.

“If I win...” he said darkly. “ _You_ have to be pleasant to me.”

She frowned. “For how long?”

“Tomorrow and the whole weekend. That means no hitting, no being rude, no doing anything that’s forbidden in this book.” Roy picked the book back up and opened it again, settling back into the couch. “It’ll be good practice anyway. You need to learn to be proper before you get married.”

She scoffed. “You want me to be proper? What about that part where I shouldn’t be alone with you?” Honestly, that was the only part of the book Riza agreed with so far. “Only family and husbands, remember?”

That gave him pause, a small frown etching into his forehead. It was short-lived, though. He put on his pretend-serious face as he looked up from her book. It looked a lot like his for-real serious face, but Riza knew well enough that he was never serious.

“So treat me like a husband.”

There was a long pause as they began an impromptu staring contest, faces blank. Roy was the first to figuratively blink, with a smile and a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. Riza followed with a rather convincing retching sound.

“Brat,” he scoffed. “You could do worse. Last time I was at your school, Miss Florence called me a gentleman. A _handsome_ gentleman at that.”

“You’re as much a gentleman as I am a lady.”

“So it’ll be good practice for both of us,” he reasoned. “You’re the one who wanted to know what it’s like to be married.”

“Not to _you_!”

“And besides,” he continued. “You’d only gotta be pleasant. And you can use the toilet whenever you like. We’ll keep it all within reason.”

She eyed him cautiously. “Within reason?”

“Yup.” He ended the word with a pop.

This was a bad idea. A truly awful, terrible idea. Which made sense, seeing as Roy came up with it. But he really was no good at chess. Last time they played, he was too pleased with the asymmetrical movements of the knight to even think about protecting his king, let alone go after hers.

And to a thirteen year old Riza, the idea of a _normal_ weekend, an actual rest from chores, and having meals _made_ for her—she didn’t know if Roy was even any good at cooking, but still—was just too shiny a prize to ignore.

Before she got the chance to say yes, Roy seemed to catch the answer in her face. “Then it’s settled!” he said, stretching out across the couch languidly and returning his attention to the book. “Get the pieces.”

 

* * *

 

“Cheer up, butterc- _ow_! Hey! What did we say about no hitting?”

“Starting _tomorrow_.”

“You’re such a sore loser.”

“And _you’re_ a cheater!”

“Me? How?”

“I don’t know! You probably used alchemy.”

“Pff. How do you spend all your time around alchemy and not know how it works?”

“What, then? Have you been practicing chess alone?”

“...Maybe. But that doesn’t count as cheating.”

“Best two out of three!”

“No way!”

“I thought you _liked_ playing chess!”

“I think I like winning better. _Ow,_ stop it!”

 

* * *

 

The school-bell had been broken for the past couple of weeks in Riza’s class, so students took it upon themselves to spend the last ten minutes staring intensely at the clock and loudly alerting the teacher the second it turned 4pm.

Riza took her time putting away her books, uninterested in getting caught in the stampede of over-excited children on a Friday afternoon. She trailed outside, slinging her bookbag over her shoulder, and briefly scanned the courtyard. Her eyes—much to her displeasure—found Roy in the corner of the yard, talking with Riza’s classmate Frieda Simmons. Roy hadn’t come to her school in weeks, and the walk home alone had been pleasantly quiet. He didn’t say why he stopped visiting, but Frieda’s unusual stormy mood suggested that he had done something to annoy her. Judging by both of their smiles and how close Roy was standing to her, he was forgiven.

She turned around in time to see a mess of wavy brown hair and blue eyes looking at her. Thomas Banks waved enthusiastically before crossing the street to approach her. His broad shoulders swung as he walked. The apples of her cheeks lived up to the color of their name, and she looked down at the ground. It wasn’t that she didn’t _want_ to talk to him. She just never knew what to say.

“Hello Ri,” he greeted as he stopped in front of her, a shadow of his tall frame casting over her.

“Hullo,” she mumbled, focusing on the scuff on her left shoe as she twisted the toe of it into the gravel. She’d have to polish them on Sunday.

“Did you learn anything fun in school today?”

She shrugged, which was about as polite an answer as she could give. One of their lessons had involved walking while balancing books on their heads. She’s been walking for as long as she can remember and she’s never needed to balance a book on her head before, so she doubts it will play a big role in her adult life.

"Me and some friends are going to the lake tomorrow afternoon if you want to come along.” Thomas smiled, flashing his white teeth and pale pink gums. He always smiled real wide, she noticed with some discomfort. It was like he was about to play a trick on you. She wasn’t sure she trusted someone who always seemed so cheerful. Roy smiled a lot too, and _he_ definitely couldn't be trusted.

“I have to go to market tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh, okay. Well maybe some other time then.”

“Maybe.”

Thomas rocked back and forth on his heels. “I better get goin’. Have a nice weekend. Bye Ri.”

“Bye.”

He turned around and started to walk hurriedly back to his friends. Riza shrugged the strap of her bag back up her shoulder and clutched it tightly.

“Who was that?” came a voice behind her. She turned around and took a step back from him, as he kept his gaze fixed over her shoulder, on the boys across the road.

“Thomas Banks,” she answered. “He moved here a few weeks ago.”

“A new-new guy, huh? How come he’s talking to you?” Roy's face scrunched like he just noticed a bad smell.

The most annoying thing about Roy wasn’t that he was rude to her, but rather that he was rude to _just_ her. He seemed to fool everyone else with candy-sweet smiles and compliments, and it was like they couldn’t even see the sarcasm twinkling in his eyes or the smug, conspiratorial smiles he’d shoot at her as he sucked up to everyone. And he made it his business to only be rude to her when there were no witnesses. Nobody had a bad thing to say about Roy Mustang. Nobody knew Roy Mustang like she did.

He had a point, though. Thomas could probably talk to some of the other girls and they might have something interesting to say. But early last week he walked up and introduced himself to Riza, and he had made the effort to talk to her every day since. He even invited her places, and for about an hour last night Riza had let herself imagine saying yes for once.

She shrugged at Roy’s question and turned toe, following the stone footpath with a determination to get away from any listening classmates. She didn’t need any sitting-in-a-tree songs to spread through the courtyard. Roy waved to some girls from the year above her and skipped a few steps until he was matching her pace.

“It’s a good thing, I suppose. If he focuses on you, I’m safe from competition. A new guy is a very exotic thing ‘round these parts. _I_ would know.” Roy had been the new guy for almost a year now.

Riza could have told him that he needn’t worry anyway. Thomas was popular enough, but he was from a few towns over, with the same rural background as everyone else. Roy was from the _city_ , which was very exciting to the girls who didn’t have to listen to him go on about it all the time. She could have told him all that, but he didn’t need anyone else making him feel smug about himself.

Instead, she walked until she was out of sight of the school before gathering her skirt, tying the bottom of it into a loose knot by her right knee. Teachers didn’t like when she did this, but she only had the one skirt and she didn’t want to have to wash mud off it every night.

Roy waited for her. “How come he’s allowed to call you Ri without you going off on one?”

“Because he doesn’t know any better,” she picking up pace to get some distance from him. She felt a harsh tug on her wrist that sent her spinning back, and just about found her footing before her face would have rammed into his pointy shoulder.

“Not yet, princess. We’re going into town.”

She twisted free from his grip, rubbing the tight skin of her wrist. “I’m going to town tomorrow for market. Go yourself if you need something.”

“Ah-ah.” Roy shook his head, a smug grin on his face. “You’re supposed to be pleasant to me, remember? That means you have to do what I say.”

“ _Within reason_!”

“It’s a Friday afternoon and I want us to go into town instead of goin’ straight home. That counts as reasonable.”

“I have to make dinner,” she huffed.

“Berty won’t notice if it’s late. Come on.”

Riza sighed and followed when he started walking toward town, plodding behind him in a way that would cause a book to fall off her head if she still had one balanced there. She kept her grumblings below her breath, in case he’d hear and call it out as unpleasant.

Last time they made a bet, Riza won and Roy’s forfeit was that he had to leave her alone for the rest of the day. He didn’t honor it. But like her history teacher said when she found him smoking by the bathrooms: the rules don’t apply to some people.

Roy whistled as he walked, ignorant or apathetic to Riza’s sour mood. When they got to the town center, he put his hands in his pockets and waited for her to catch up.

“What do you want to do in town anyway?” Riza asked.

He shrugged. “Haven’t decided.”

Riza cursed at him in her head. What was the point of coming all this way if he didn’t need anything?

He twisted around, scanning the few shops and stalls, before lurching forward toward the apothecary.

Riza followed him, crinkling her nose. She _hated_ the apothecary. It was also the town tobacconist (and tea shop, _and_ soap-maker) so the smell of dried plants and tobacco mixed together to make it impossible to breathe through the nose. That rule also counted for the shopkeeper, Mrs. Lyons, whose mouth always hung open as if she were trying to catch flies.

“Hello Mrs. Lyons,” Roy greeted cheerily as he pushed the door open and the beads jangled at the top of the frame.

Mrs. Lyons’ curly hair bounced as she turned to face them. She smiled, yellowing teeth flashing as her cheeks dimpled. “Roy! Back so soon?” She turned her attention on Riza, eyes flickering down and smile fading. Riza noticed what she was looking at and fiddled with the knot by her knee until the hem of her skirt fell back to her ankles.

“We’re not going to have any more problems here, are we?” she asked, still eyeing Riza skeptically.

Riza fought back the impulse to roll her eyes. Last time she was here with Roy, she had shoved him and he fell against a set of shelves, scattering bottles and containers onto the floor. Nothing broke, but Mrs. Lyons still tongue-lashed her for a whole fifteen minutes for being careless, as Roy pouted and pretended to nurse a his ‘wounded’ knee. And it was Roy who was careless anyway! She barely pushed him, and she was still positive he stumbled on purpose. He certainly wasn’t limping when he left.

“Don’t worry,” Roy assured her, grinning at Riza like she was his best friend. “Miss Hawkeye has promised to be on her best behavior, isn’t that right?”

Riza took a deep breath, getting a noseful of tobacco and lavender. She clamped her teeth together to stop from hissing at him, and nodded.

Mrs. Lyons’ attentions returned to Roy, smile blooming once more. “How can I help you today, honey?”

“Just browsing for now, we’ll be out of your hair soon,” Roy flashed her what he liked to call his ‘charming’ smile, but Riza thought of it more like a chump smile, because only chumps could fall for it.

Mrs. Lyons, apparently, was a chump. “Nonsense, honey. Take all the time you need.”

Roy nodded gratefully before turning to walk lazily toward the shelves, scanning the bottles and bags as he passed them.

Riza huffed a little breath. She hated aimless shopping. It felt idle, and she had plenty of other things to be doing.

Roy picked up a sachet of dried rose petals, sniffed it and then put it back down.

Since she wasn’t allowed to be rude and tell him to hurry up already, she quietly said “papa’s going to wonder where we are.”

“You give the old man too much credit,” he mumbled back, picking up another sachet.

A whole hair-tearing thirty minutes later, Roy had finally selected his ingredients. Sachets of dried elderflower, lavender and dandelions along with lemongrass and a little bottle of citrus oil were placed on the counter. The total cost came to about half of what Riza would spend on weekly groceries.

“And a bottle of moonshine please, Mrs. Lyons.”

The shopkeeper raised her brow.

Roy just chuckled breezily. “It’s for a transmutation. Mr. Hawkeye says your moonshine has less impurities in it than anyone else’s in the whole town.”

Mrs. Lyons looked like she was proposed to by a prince. “My, how lovely. Just this once, you can have this on the house,” she gushed as she fetched the bottle from the counter. As Roy reached out to take it, she pulled it back from his reach. “ _If_ you promise not to drink it yourself.”

“Cross my heart,” Roy drew an x over his chest (on the opposite side of his heart, Riza noticed) and smiled so big his chubby cheeks forced his eyes closed.

Once the beads at the door stopped jingling and they were safely outside, Riza stared at Roy.

“What?” he asked boredly.

“Transmutations don’t usually look like cocktail ingredients.”

Roy snickered. “Why the sudden interest in alchemy?”

“Papa would throw you out if he thought you were wasting your study time getting drunk.”

Roy spun her around and opened the flap of her bookbag, placing the ingredients inside. Her shoulder dropped with the weight of the moonshine bottle.

“Relax, it actually _is_ for a transmutation. Well… some of it at least. And besides,” He slipped the strap from her shoulder and turned her back around to face him, smiling slyly as he slung the bookbag onto his back. “It wouldn’t be very pleasant of you to rat me out to daddy.”

Riza clenched her jaw as Roy walked past her, back toward home.

“Come on, I’m starvin’. Hey what’s for dinner tonight anyway?”

She would be lucky if she didn’t wear out all the enamel on her teeth by the end of the weekend.

 

* * *

 

Riza had the foresight to make breakfast that could be eaten cold. After hearing her father shuffle down the hallways at who knows what hour, she knew he wouldn’t be awake to eat breakfast. So two bowls of creamed rice with fruit sat untouched on the table as Riza ate hers alone.

She’d been told by Roy that he would take his breakfast in bed today, and while she was honor-bound by the bet to comply, she wasn’t about to rush around for him. She ate her breakfast slowly, each bite a silent revolt. When she finished, she picked up her bowl and thoroughly washed it in the sink. She even took the time to towel-dry it and her spoon instead of leaving them on the drying rack.

She walked at a snail’s pace to Roy’s room, trying to enjoy what she assumed would be the last few seconds of silence she’d get all day. She’d taken food to his room before, usually when he was sick, but she never had to be nice about it.

Not for the first time, Riza wished she had a normal father. One who went to bed at a regular hour and maybe talked to her a little more. Most importantly, one who would be unhappy at the idea of a teenage boy bringing her into his bedroom. Maybe a normal father would give Roy a stern talking to. It’d serve him right.

She considered barging through his door; he probably wasn’t even awake yet. Instead, she knocked first, trying to convey just how mad she was at the whole situation with a couple of strikes of knuckle against wood.

“Come in,” he called, too cheery for this time in the morning.

When she shouldered the door open, Roy was sat up in bed, blanket covering up to his lap and his green pajama shirt hanging loosely from his wiry torso. He looked wide awake, eyeing the bowl in her hands hungrily.

“Took your time,” he teased. “I might have to get a little bell.”

Riza bit her tongue and put the bowl on his nightstand, turning straight away to get out.

“Where’s yours?”

“I ate it already,” she muttered without looking back. She almost made it to the door, but he was too alert to be fooled so easily.

“Hold your horses. Stay while I eat so you can bring the bowl back.”

She grumbled as she walked back to his bed, sitting down at the edge of it. He brought his knees up and tucked his feet under her thighs through the blanket.

“So what are we going to do today?” he asked before taking a bite of creamed rice. He sounded genuinely curious, as if he had claimed a prize and hadn’t thought through on how best to use it.

“I have to go to town.”

“We went to town yesterday!”

“I didn’t have any money. Then, I have to clean all the downstairs rooms and dust the shelves.”

“Why are you always cleaning?” he whined. “Half the rooms don’t get used anyway and it’s not like Berty will notice if it gets dusty.”

“I’ll notice.”

“Well, notice on Monday! Come on, Ri, don’t let’s spend the whole weekend doing chores.”

She’d have to catch up on a lot of things on Monday, including letting him get an earful of exactly what she thought of him. But for now, she just huffed.

“We’ll go to market after breakfast and if it’s nice we’ll go to the lake,” he asserted in the most grown-up voice she’s ever heard him use in private.

Riza nodded absently before the words registered properly. Then she barked out an undignified “No!”

Roy spooked at the volume, almost dropping his spoon. “What?” he muffled through his stuffed face.

“There’ll be people at the lake!” _Thomas Banks_ would be at the lake later, but Riza wasn’t about to name him. If Roy thought she might care what Thomas Banks thinks, he’d make her go for sure. And going wasn’t the part she objected to. It was going _with Roy_.

Roy swallowed his rice and fruit in one big gulp. “So?”

“Let’s go somewhere else!”

“What’s the point in you being nice to me if nobody is around to see it?”

Riza scowled at that. He was such a performer, always wanting to be around other people and showin’ off. Roy always liked other people’s opinions about him.

Riza swilled that thought for a moment, trying to find the kernel of a solution that showed up blurry in her mind.

...Eureka!

“What would Frieda Simmons think if she saw me bein’ nice to you all of a sudden?”

Roy recoiled. “Ewwww, she wouldn’t think we were together!”

“Are you sure?”

He frowned, dropping his head to look at his near-empty bowl. He considered it for a few minutes before slumping his shoulders, defeated.

“Fine,” he conceded. “But I still wanna do somethin’.”

You could help w—”

“Something _fun._ ”

“What, then?”

He took his last spoonful of breakfast and handed her the empty bowl. “Iunno. You shot down the lake idea, you think of somethin’.”

As she stood up to leave, Roy stretched his legs out again and yawned.

“Bring me some tea first, thanks,” he called after her.

 

* * *

 

Riza had taken the money from her dad’s study drawer for groceries. The trip to town and back had taken twice as long as usual with Roy dragging his feet and talking to everyone who passed by and trying to convince her to buy things they didn’t need. She relented towards the end of the trip, partially out of exhaustion and partially because she really did want that lemon sherbet powder packet with the lollipop dipstick. She bought one for Roy too, even though candy was supposed to be a treat for good children and not for annoying scoundrels. If she didn’t buy him one he would have dipped his finger in hers, though.

When she finished putting away the groceries, he looked at her expectantly.

“Well, what are we gonna do?”

“I was gonna read,” she said simply, even though she knew he wouldn’t accept the answer.

“Come off it, bookworm.”

“How am I supposed to know how to act if I don’t read the book!” she protested.

“We’re working off the _spirit_ of the book. I’ll tell you if you’re not being proper.”

She scoffed. “As if you know what proper is.”

Roy crossed his arms. “You’re wasting time.” He lunged forward and grabbed her forearm before she had a chance to react, turning and leading her forcefully out of the kitchen.

“Where are we goin’?”

“To the river. Frieda’s afraid of the woods so she definitely won’t be there.”

Riza pulled from his grasp but followed beside him. They tore open their sherbet packets as they walked.

The sunlight split through the trees, narrow sunbeams lighting up the damp moss and grass. Their footsteps echoed against thick treetrunks, and the occasional flapping of wings cut through the relative silence. After a while, what began as a whispering drone got louder and louder until they could hear the unmistakable sound of gushing water.

Roy finished his sherbet first, so he dipped his lollipop in her packet. Riza hugged it closer to herself so he wouldn’t do it a second time. When they arrived at the river Roy rolled up the bottoms of his trousers and took off his shoes, and she followed suit.

They sat on a rock at the edge of the riverbank and dipped their feet into the water. They both flinched at the sudden bite of cold against their feet and calves, but neither withdrew from the river for fear of looking less capable than the other. Eventually Riza got used to the cold.

“So are you gonna grow out your hair?” Roy asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“No.”

“Why not? I never saw a lady in the city with short hair. ‘Cept one of the girls who worked for my aunt, and that was because she had an accident with a lantern.”

Riza snorted, then felt bad about it.

Roy tilted his head at her curiously before reaching up and carding his fingers through the longer hairs on the top of her head. She shook him off at the cost of a few hairs plucked from between his knuckles. “It might be pretty,” he continued, rubbing his fingers together to dislodge the loose hairs. They caught the wind and glided gently for a few seconds before they were pulled into the river’s current and carried away.

“I don't want to be pretty.”

“What _do_ you want to be, then?”

She’d been asked the question a lot at school, but it was strange to hear Roy ask it. Usually the personal questions he asked her were rude, or if they weren’t, he never seemed too bothered about finding out the answer. But he was looking at her expectantly, waiting for a response. She couldn’t trick him so easily, just spit out an occupation like ‘teacher’ or ‘nurse’ and be done with it. Roy was an idiot but he was no fool.

“Strong,” she answered honestly. She wanted to be strong.

She got a disbelieving “pfft” in reply, but he didn’t push it further.

 

* * *

 

 

When they got home, Riza did all the chores that even Roy had to admit she couldn’t ignore, namely making dinner and cleaning the kitchen and living room. Because they (and by extension, her father) had skipped lunch, she made a bigger dinner than usual. Boiled potatoes and steamed vegetables floated in a lentil soup, and Riza pushed a broccoli floret around her bowl as her father and Roy talked about the test Roy was to take tomorrow evening.

“Oh that reminds me, Miss Hawkeye. I need to get those ingredients from your bookbag when you have the chance.”

“Ingredients? It’s is a written exam, my boy.”

Roy smiled up at his teacher. “It’s extra-curricular, sir. Very safe, I just wanted to experiment with one of the arrays I studied last month.”

Berthold Hawkeye smiled—a rare gift indeed—and patted Roy’s head like he was an obedient puppy. Roy grinned proudly.

Riza stabbed a potato with her fork.

After dinner, she spent as long washing up as she could. A couple minutes into her task, Roy appeared at the doorway and leaned against the frame, watching her.

She almost spat an irritated “ _what_ ” at him for staring, but remembered the bet. Instead she kept her back to him, continuing her work, and asked quietly “do you want tea?”

There was a short pause. “Actually, yes.”

She grabbed the kettle and filled it with water before putting it onto the stove. As she waited for it to boil, she returned to the sink.

He could feel his eyes still on her and she fought from shrinking down. “Ask papa if he wants tea. Please.”

Roy didn’t move for a long second, and Riza was about to repeat herself before he finally turned away and left.

 

* * *

 

 

Riza made Roy tea two more times before bed. The first time, he requested it while she was cleaning around him in the living room. The second time, he sought her out to ask for it, and could have probably done it himself in the same amount of time it took him to find her.

When she brought him the second cup he closed his book, finished with study for the evening.

“What should we do tomorrow?”

“ _You_ should keep studying.”

“Nah, got lots done today. I’ll be fine.” He flashed his teeth at her and she rolled her eyes.

“I have to do laundry. And shine my shoes.”

“You can do that during my test. I’m talkin’ about the afternoon.”

“Why are you even asking me what I want to do if you keep telling me no?”

“You don’t _want_ to do laundry.”

“Do too.”

Roy gave a dramatic sigh. “I swear, Ri, I’ll make a lady out of you yet.”

 _I don’t want to be a lady_. “Ladies do laundry.”

“Ladies also have hobbies. Embroidery or piano or whatever. Ladies like spending time with me,” he said with a wink and a grin. Riza scoffed, but she couldn’t exactly argue. Everyone in her class talked about Roy Mustang as if he were some kind of exotic bird. They loved seeing him, getting close to him. They didn’t even seem to mind when he flew off to go bask in someone else’s attention.

Riza wished she were any other girl in the world. Then it would be guaranteed that he would eventually leave her alone.

“I’m going to bed,” she muttered.

“G’night. I’ll have my breakfast in bed again tomorrow. And _early_ this time, I know you’re stealing time from our bet on purpose.”

 

* * *

 

When Riza entered his room that morning, he was already fully dressed and out of bed. Her bookbag sat in the corner along with the bottle of moonshine, and a transmutation circle was drawn in chalk on the floorboards. He was stood beside it, dusting chalk off his pants.

“Are you about to do your alchemy experiment?”

“Nah, I just finished,” he said.

She frowned. “And the moonshine?”

He grinned teasingly and raised his eyebrows. “What? Want some?”

“You didn’t use any of it!”

“I used a little,” he shrugged and sat down on his bed, patting the cleared area of the mattress in front of him. “Come on, let’s eat.”

She had brought her own breakfast in this time too. It was easier to clean two plates at once. It would be easier still to clean all three at once, but her father had been up late again and she was pretty sure Roy wouldn’t want to wait for him.

“So do you know what you want to do?” Roy asked between bites of toast.

She shrugged. “You come up with something. I’m not gonna help you figure out how to torture me.”

He snorted, crumbs of toast flying out of his mouth. “And you call _me_ dramatic. It’s not so hard to be nice to me, is it?”

She took a large bite of her toast and said nothing. Roy frowned at her.

“Well I can make it a whole lot harder if you want,” he said petulantly. “If you don’t help out I’ll have to think of something else to do.” His eyes twinkled as his bad-idea smile spread slowly across his face. He pointedly looked her up and down. “We could just stay in my room all day.”

Riza clenched her fist to keep from chucking her plate at him. “I’ll think of somethin’,” she grounded through her teeth.

“What, then?”

She licked her fingers clean of melted butter and thought about what they could do. They’ve already been to market and he’d probably think it was a cop-out if she were to suggest the river again. And if she said she wanted to go to the lake, he’d get suspicious as to why she wouldn't go yesterday. There was only really one other place she could think of, but she hasn’t been there in over a year and she certainly never brought anyone with her.

“It’s a pretty long way out,” she warned, and he smiled.

“That’s fine, so long as I’m back before my exam,” he said. “Make some lunch and we’ll make a day of it.”

“Do you have a pocket watch?”

His eyebrows pinched. “No. Why?”

Instead of answering, she left to go to her room, retrieving the bronze locket that once belonged to her mother. She opened it and saw that the clock was still working, though it was over three hours. Plucking the pin with her fingernail, she twisted it until it matched the clock on her wall.

“We’ll need to be back before 4,” she explained as he followed her into her room. “It’s roast beef tonight and that takes ages to cook.”

He rolled his eyes as she slipped the locket over her neck. She knew he wouldn’t argue with her, though. Roy loved the Sunday roast more than any other meal she made. Sunday was the one day that guaranteed meat.

Riza packed a few sandwiches and some clementines into an old paper shopping bag, making extra and leaving it on the kitchen counter for her father. It was likely that he wouldn’t get up until afternoon and would have the oatmeal and yogurt she left for him in the dining room, but she wanted to be sure there was extra food ready just in case. Then, at the request of Roy, she made a couple cups of tea and they drank them in the dining room before she cleaned up and they were ready to go.

Less than twenty minutes into their walk, Roy already started to complain.

“Come _on_ , Ri. We’ve been walking for ages and you still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

“I told you it would be a long way out.”

“Are we at least close?”

“Not at all.”

Roy continued complaining for the hour it took to reach the train tracks and only stopped when Riza jumped onto them, hopping across the planks in the center and trying to keep her balance.

“Um, Ri?”

“Yeah?” she asked, looking down at the tracks as she hopped on one leg.

“Is that a good idea?”

She almost laughed. It wasn’t like Roy to be the responsible one. Instead, she flipped open the locket and checked the time. “There’s no train due to come through here for another half hour.”

He still looked skeptical. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” She moved over to the far track and extended her hand to him.

He looked at it warily, eventually taking it and climbing onto the parallel track. She released his hand and they both walked slowly, one foot directly in front of the other as they tried to keep their balance. When Roy wobbled, he reached out and she reflexively reached back for him, helping him regain his balance. They continued their gymnastics, but Roy didn’t let go of her hand. She tried not to scoff at him. The drop was a few inches, only, and he flinched every time he heard the smallest noise, as if the sound of chirping birds was anything like a speeding train. What a baby.

Eventually, she spotted their destination. “We’re here,” she announced and jumped off the track, Roy following suit. She climbed the green hill to the top and turned to wait for him. When he reached the top, they were both a little out of breath.

He looked around him confusedly. “This is it?”

She fought back a frown. She supposed it didn't look like much. “See that?” she said, pointing down at a large metal sign half a mile north from them. “Once you pass that sign, you’ve left the town.”

Roy squinted down at the sign, trying to read the farewell. “Huh. I haven’t left this place in months.”

“I’ve never left it.”

A look that seemed mighty pitiful was on his face, so she sat on the grass and hugged her knees, keeping her attention on the train tracks.

“It’s almost time.”

He sat beside her, opening the lunch bag. “Almost time for what?”

She took a sandwich from him and pointed at the tracks.

It was only a couple minutes before they heard the train. When it came into view, it seemed to move sluggishly, steam from the smokestack spreading into the sky above like wet ink. But when it came closer, it picked up pace, carriage after carriage flitting in and out of sight.

“It’s an old one,” Riza mused. “They were used to transport coal back when the mine was running. Now it carries livestock and produce mostly.”

Roy nodded as he looked at the blur of colorful carriages speeding past. Dark blue, rust red, mustard yellow, grey. Unless you picked a carriage and followed it with your eyes, it all blurred into one brown blob.

“See how some of them are open?” she asked, pointing. “They wouldn’t have any animals in them. Just hay.”

“Huh,” he breathed, mesmerized.

Riza hugged her knees closer and basked in the row of seemingly-endless carriages.

“How did you know what time they run?” Roy asked.

“I used to come here a lot.” It was a favorite spot for her after her mother died. She could be alone, with only the sound of the train for company. She stopped visiting when the house began to fall apart and she took it upon herself to keep it together.

“Sometimes…” she began and instantly regretted it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to share that thought with Roy. But he didn’t ask her to continue, he just turned to face her and looked at her patiently. So she took a deep breath and tried again.

“Sometimes I imagined myself hopping onto one of the open carriages and just…leavin’,” she confessed. “That train goes to North City. I’ve never seen snow that sticks before.”

“It snows in Central!” he contributed enthusiastically. “In the winter anyway. You could visit for the winter holiday maybe.” He said it with such optimism that it almost seemed like he believed it, but they both knew her father wouldn’t last very long without her. “Though you’d want to get a ticket and go on a regular train with seats. It’d be way more comfortable.”

Riza took a bite of her sandwich and looked down as the final carriage passed them and rolled toward the border.

Even though they both knew it was an empty promise, she still muttered a hopeful “maybe.” It didn’t feel like a lie. It felt more like a game of pretend.

 

* * *

 

The walk home felt a lot quicker than it felt getting there. Since Roy knew how long it would roughly take, he whined about it less.

They got home just a little after 4, and she started dinner right away. Roy did some last-minute study in the dining room, though he said he didn’t strictly _need_ to. While the roast was in the oven, Riza shined her shoes, as well as Roy’s and her father’s while the polish was out.

They all ate together in the dining room, though there was less conversation than normal. Her father looked haggard, clearly very tired from his late-night meanderings. Roy mostly spoke for the three of them.

After dinner, she made Roy tea at his request, and a cup of coffee for her father. If Riza were pushed real hard about it, she’d maybe admit that it hadn’t been the _worst_ weekend in the world, but she was looking forward to being able to tell Roy to go make his own tea. When they finally retired to the study for the exam, she got to work washing up and performing her other chores.

The laundry caught the setting sun on the line so it was half-dry by the time it got dark. Riza hoped it wouldn’t rain tonight—her uniform was on the line. She usually had the clothes in and folded before it was even time to start dinner. She’d have to get up early to fold the rest of the clothes before school.

As she walked back inside, she felt the locket swinging and beating against her chest. She had almost forgotten it was there. She put it away safely along with the other jewellery her mother owned—a couple of bracelets and a simple pair of silver earrings. Her fancier jewellery was buried with her, along with her wedding ring. Riza wasn’t one for wearing stuff that wasn’t strictly necessary, so she never really saw the appeal. Still, it was nice to have a use for the locket for a day, like she was carrying a memory with her. Maybe when she got older she would wear more jewellery. Maybe she’d even get her ears pierced.

It was completely dark by the time Roy and his teacher emerged from the study, both of them wearing matching weary smiles.

“A hundred percent,” Roy announced proudly as Berthold patted his shoulder.

“You did very well m’boy. Now get some rest, we begin new lessons tomorrow.”

“Yes sir,” he said cheerily. “Goodnight Miss Hawkeye.” And with that, he shuffled to his bedroom. Riza relaxed her shoulders and exhaled deeply. Tomorrow morning, everything would go back to normal.

“I think I’m going to go to bed too,” her father said softly. “I’m going to have to make the lessons tougher for the boy. He’s coming along very well.” He yawned deeply and climbed the stairs toward his room.

Riza hoped the lessons got _much_ tougher for Roy. It wasn’t fair that he always did well and hardly ever had to try for it. She often studied twice as hard for school as he did for his lessons. He always did his assignments and homework last-minute whereas she…

Riza felt a chill run through her entire body as she tried to finish the thought. Whereas she… she…

Oh no.

_Her homework!_

Riza ran to Roy’s room, swinging his door open so wide it cracked against the wall, the sound reverberating for several seconds.

There was a blur of skin and flying hands and an angry “hey!” but she had no time to get embarrassed about it. She spotted her bookbag in the corner and grabbed it, rushing back to the living room, almost tripping over her own feet as she ran.

This wasn’t _her_ , she wasn’t the slacker!

The first thing she saw when she opened her bag was that stupid, ancient book. Its faded royal blue cover with the picture of a woman in a bonnet mocked her. _A Woman Sculpted_. Sculpted women probably did their homework on time. This particular sculpted woman found herself thrown hard across the room, pages falling out from under the cover like she was lifting her petticoat in a rather un-lady-like way.

Riza grabbed the important school books, poring through them until she found the appropriate pages and slamming them unceremoniously on the coffee table. She fell to her knees so fast they’d hurt tomorrow, and opened her math copybook until she found a fresh page. She managed to write down three equations before the lead of her pencil snapped and crumbled. Rats!

She grabbed another pencil and hastily looked over the equations again. She struggled in math at the best of times, but right now it was just a blur of numbers and panic and symbols and more panic.

Roy emerged, in just his pajama pants, with a pink face. “What the hell was that about?”

“Go away,” she muttered, scribbling furiously.

“You’re not allowed just run into my roo—”

“Go away!” She didn’t have the time to argue that he went into her room all the time without her wanting him there.

Roy opened his mouth to yell some more but stopped when he finally saw the open books. “Oh, I get it,” he said with an awed, gaping smile. “Miss Diligent forgot to do her homework.”

Riza made a sound like a rabid dog but kept her eyes on her work. _a_ _x_ _=b. Log_ _(a)_ _b=…_ There weren’t even any numbers in this one!

Roy quickly slipped into character, crossing his arms and tutting, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “What do you suppose Ms. Florence will say?

Before Riza could pointedly _not_ respond, a voice boomed from behind Roy.

“What is all this racket?”

For the second time, the tip of Riza’s pencil snapped, dragging powdered lead across the page as she looked up at the tired and irritated face of her father. Great. Now he chooses to pay attention. She would bet money that his discontent had nothing to do with the topless teenage boy who was buggin’ her.

Roy’s shoulders tightened at the voice, but he turned to face his teacher, still looking as casual as ever.

“Sorry to disturb you sir. We’ll keep it down from now on.”

“Sorry papa,” Riza mumbled, head bowed. Unfortunately when it came to getting people to do what you wanted, it was always best to follow Roy’s lead.

“Would you like something to drink? I can bring it to your room,” Roy added helpfully, his voice just a touch too sweet.

Berthold scanned the room from above Roy’s shoulder, eyes finally resting in the corner. With a dreadful pain in her tummy, Riza followed her father’s line of sight until she saw the mess of unbound pages slid out of the cover of her book like a mudslide.

He walked over to it in what felt to Riza like slow motion. Roy made room for him to enter the living room and his own face fell when he saw the book. He cast a quick look at Riza, and she could see him trying to piece together the story behind the destroyed book.

Her father bent over the carnage, picking up the cover and the few pages that had managed to stay clung to the spine.

“ _A Woman Sculpted..."_ His voice lowered to a mutter as he read the rest of the cover to himself. His eyebrows rose as he read. “Oh.”

“It’s a stupid book!” Riza defended quickly. “It’s like a million years old, and it’s not like it even teaches anything important!”

Her father looked over at her, irritation drained from his face and replaced with a look that Riza hadn’t seen since the first and last time he tried to teach her alchemy. It made Riza want to throw up.

“Riza,” he began gently, and she would have felt a whole lot better if he had yelled. “School books aren’t cheap. And your education is very important. You can’t just ignore your lessons because you don’t like them.”

Riza opened her mouth to respond but instead just flapped her lips like a goldfish. How could he understand? How could she explain exactly how useless it was to be a lady?

In her desperation, she looked at Roy pleadingly. It took him a second to snap out of his shock and step forward.

“It’s really not a big deal, sir. Here…” Roy rushed to the coffee table and rifled through Riza’s pencil case until he found a nub of chalk. Then he walked over to the loose pages and knelt on the ground. After hastily drawing a transmutation circle, he lifted the pages and plucked the cover from his master’s hands, dumping the lot in a pile in the center. A couple of seconds later, the book lay in the middle of the circle, fully intact and in better condition than it was when she got it.

“See? Good as new,” Roy beamed, standing up and dusting off his knees before giving the book to his teacher for inspection.

Berthold turned the book over in his hands before flicking through the pages quickly. “Very impressive, my boy. All of the pages seem to be in order.” He smiled at his apprentice, a smile which slowly faded as he turned back to his daughter.

“Take better care of your things from now on,” he said, gently but firmly. “And keep studying hard.” He placed the book on the coffee table beside her open textbooks and shuffled back toward the door.

Riza almost released a relieved breath, before her father spoke again over his shoulder.

“It wouldn’t hurt for you to be more like Roy.”

With that, he left, along with Riza’s temporary solace.

Neither Roy nor Riza moved for well over a minute. Roy stood there mouth agape and eyes wide, shining with the terror of a plan gone wrong. Riza’s chest tightened and her vision glazed over, blurring everything as if she were looking through a dirty window.

More like Roy. That’s all he’s ever really wanted from her. Even before Roy ever came here, she was supposed to be something different. His arrival a year ago just put a name to it.

She had almost forgotten he was still in the room, until he broke the silence softly. “Ri—”

The single syllable broke her trance, and her head bowed to look at her copybook. “I have to finish this.” Her hand tightened around her now-useless pencil.

“I could help?”

“No thank you Mister Mustang. You should go back to bed.”

His eyes flashed with hurt, lip jutting out as he frowned. “Don’t call me that when we’re alone.”

She looked down at the blue cover of the closed book. It looked less faded, there was almost a shine to the white skirts of the lady’s dress.

“It’s proper,” she responded.

 

* * *

 

She finished her homework in record time. It was messy and hard to read but she’d answered the questions correctly and that was all she had the energy to care about tonight.

For probably the first time ever, Roy walked into the room when she was finished rather than in the middle of something. It was late, and she wondered if his timing was good or if he had been waiting outside for a while. His face gave nothing away though, just a casual yawn, as if the events of the evening had never happened. He didn't even look at her as he fished the chessboard from the cupboard.

“Chess?”

She scowled. “I’m never playing chess with you again,” she promised. Chess got her into this whole mess in the first place.

“Checkers then,” he decided aloud, picking up the bag of counters.

He set up the board once she had fully cleared the coffee table. She sat back on the couch with her etiquette book in her hand, giving it one final glare before stuffing it into her bag.

“Red or white?” he asked idly.

“White.”

He circled the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch beside her, his leg knocking against hers.

She scowled. “Go round.”

“I can reach fine from here,” he shrugged, putting the last pieces in place and leaning back, draping his arm across the back cushion and waiting for her to take the first move.

After she moved her piece, he leaned forward for his turn. “You didn’t take long at all. You shouldn’t have panicked so much.”

She looked up at him. “Why, what time is it?”

“About 11.30.”

That was unfortunate for the both of them. She didn’t have a half-hour of restraint left in her.

“Ow! Jeez, _stop it!”_ Roy pleaded angrily as she landed blow after blow onto him. She managed to get a good swipe of his jaw but everything else was protected by his shielding arms. He eventually managed to push her away, and he scrambled to the far side of the couch, knees up to protect him. She hit them a few times too.

He scowled at her when she finally dropped her fists, wincing as he rubbed a sore spot on his arm. “You’ll make a terrible wife for someone someday, you know that?”

“I’m never ever gonna get married,” she grumbled, returning to the game.

He sat back up once he was sure the coast was clear. “How’re you gonna pass the term if you can’t even stick to a simple bet?”

“Sucks to your bet! Bein’ a lady is awful.”

Roy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe you could work for my aunt one day. None of the girls who work for her are married.”

“And etiquette isn’t even part of our final grades!”

“I hope Frieda doesn’t read that part about not spending time alone with boys.”

“I can’t believe I wasted the _whole_ weekend—”

Roy cut her off with a loud, exasperated groan. “You didn’t _waste_ anything. You waste every other weekend.”

“I didn’t get anything useful done!”

“That’s not what weekends are _for!_ ” He grabbed her wrist as she went to take her turn and twisted her to face him on the couch. He had an angry frown on his face that was probably partly to do with her words and partly to do with the bruises that were no doubt forming on his arms.

“You do like three times more work than you need to,” he said seriously. “I’m probably the best friend you have and you don’t even like spending much time with me. You had to lose a bet before I could even get you to go for a walk! This place is _boring_ and lonely and when you’re cleaning rooms no-one’s used in years, I’ve got _nothing_ to do.”

“You could study.”

He rolled his eyes and his grip on her wrist tightened as if he were about to shake some sense into her. “I don’t _want_ to study all day every day. It’s not natural. And houses never finish being cleaned so stop trying and just do what you want for a change!” He loosened his hold on her. “What do you want?”

She felt herself shrinking a little as he looked at her. He wasn’t usually the one to get angry, he preferred being as casual and uncaring as possible to rile her up. She was the one who got mad. She was still mad! She wanted to go back to hitting him. She wanted to pack up the game and go to bed. She wanted to ignore him for at least a week. She wanted… She wanted…

“Tea.”

He blinked. “Tea?”

She nodded. “I want tea.”

He gaped at her for a few seconds, but she held his gaze firmly. She didn’t know what he expected of her, but it was as honest an answer as she could give.

He dropped her wrist and laughed, a snicker at first before he let it all out, gasping between chesty chuckles. Riza didn't much like the feeling that she was the butt of the joke, but she kept her jaw tight to make sure he didn't know that.

“Okay princess,” he said once he got enough air into his lungs to talk. “Two teas, coming up.”

He stood up and shuffled toward the kitchen, but not before shuffling through the pocket of his pajama pants and stealthily slipping something onto the coffee table beside the board.

When he left the room, she picked it up. It was a bottle. It looked like the bottle of citrus oil that he bought at market, but when she removed the cork to take an experimental sniff, there was only the hint of a smell of citrus oil. It was snuffed out by other smells — lavender, lemongrass, elderflower and dandelions. And underneath it was the subtle but unmistakable scent of alcohol. She wondered for a second if it was some botanical infusion for the moonshine, to make it taste better, but that made no sense with a bottle so small. She remembered her lessons on Thursday.

“ _Application to the pulse-points will warm it up and carry it for longer. Remember: never use too much. You want it to be a subtle scent, not an overall odor._ ”

She shook a couple of droplets onto one wrist, rubbing her wrists together before touching them to the pressure-points behind her ears.

He returned with two cups of tea just as she was putting the bottle back onto the coffee table.

“The rosewater made me think of it,” he explained casually. He sat beside her and handed her the tea, taking the opportunity to lean in sneak a quick press of his nose to her neck. She couldn't push him away without spilling her tea, so she just frowned and hoped he could feel it.

He inhaled deeply before sitting back, eyes half-closed. “It’s a really simple transmutation. It can be done without alchemy too, it just needs to sit for longer if you do it the old-fashioned way.”

“Smells like something you eat,” she mumbled.

He grinned wolfishly. “That’s the point.”

She scowled at him as her stomach tightened. He kept looking at her anyway, unaffected, so she tried to hide her blush by dipping her head and bringing the teacup to her lips. It was nice. She usually sweetened her tea with honey because sugar was expensive, but Roy wasn’t much mindful of the cost of things.

“You should give it to Frieda Simmons,” she said when she finished her sip.

He snorted. “No way, she’d take it as a sign we’re going steady or something.”

Riza quickly decided she wanted to stop talking about romantic things. “This is good,” she said, nodding toward her teacup.

His chest puffed out like a fancy bird’s, and he smiled tightly, as if he were trying to stop an even bigger smile from showing. He folded his legs underneath him and leaned his shoulder against hers.

“Ask me for things more often.”

They finished their game and Riza beat him by a mile. Before they left to go to bed, he nagged her until she begrudgingly agreed that she might, one day, _maybe,_ play him at chess again. So long as there were no more bets.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [here.](https://1st-time-caller.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [long may your innocence reign](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16917012) by [goldendrachma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldendrachma/pseuds/goldendrachma)




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